Heroes Volume Two: Ready
by Itzika
Summary: It turns out there's an organization that's even worse than the one Bennett worked for, and it's up to our favorite Heroes and a few newbies to take it down, and to reveal their existence to a world that's barely ready! ON HIATUS
1. Chapter 1: Shiver

A/N: This is my version of Heroes, Volume Two: "Ready". I will update every Monday at nine, or do my best, because otherwise my onii (older brother, but not really) will kill me. I will do my best to make my OC's as not-perfect as possible. Each chapter will hopefully be ten to fifteen pages handwritten, which means up to five pages typed.

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes… waaaaaaaah!!!

Warnings: blood… if you don't like that (what are you doing watching Heroes, anyway?), then skip the scene that starts out "For three days…"

---

Volume Two: "Ready"

Chapter One: "Shiver"

---

When the bomb went off, they all knew.

It only killed two: the bomb himself, and the one who died from the devastating levels of radiation that resulted from the blast. But they all felt it.

It was like a shiver running through their bones, through their blood, through their very DNA. And it affected all of them. Even those who didn't know felt it. Even those who had been suppressed felt it.

Even the triplets who thought and existed as one mind.

Even the "normal" woman whose only connection to them was the "special" child growing in her belly.

Even the Witch-boy who was sunk deep within himself, bending the blank slate in his mind into another advantage.

Even the FBI agent who screamed as her genes were pulled apart and altered, as complete strangers tore apart all the life she'd ever known.

Even the second-generation, the only living example of successful genetic suppression.

Even the once-dead man who never stirred as his body aged years in mere weeks.

Even the many-times zombie whose own power could never be measured or recorded or proven, yet still existed.

They all felt it.

And all of them—every one—knew what it meant.

_The world has changed._

_It is ready._

---

He stared out over the water, wondering if the kid had landed somewhere out there. He'd been watching—the explosion had occurred at least five miles up. There was no telling where he'd landed.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and stood on end. He whirled to look behind him. Nothing "special" about this—he'd developed this skill without any help from his mutant DNA.

A man sat at a table in the café across the street. Even from here he could tell that the watcher's right eye had a red contact lens in it. Force of habit jerked his eyes to the man's right hand, with the fingers typing frantically on his palm. Morse code.

He didn't have to look to know what the man was typing. _Code: 0114DX. Name: Joseph Crichton. Alias:_

Claude stood, invisible, and melted into the crowd.

---

For three days, Jenny waited and watched.

The man had been splattered across the pavement when she first arrived. Then, slowly, methodically, the blood spatters by Jenny's feet began to withdraw, melting into the man's arms. The entire pool of blood collected and slowly, slowly drew back into shredded veins.

Jenny jumped when the first bone reset with a _snap_. The sound was loud enough to wake the neighborhood. Jenny watched, and her sisters with her, but nothing more changed.

That was the beginning of the second day. At noon that day, Jenny stood and walked forward until she stood at the edge of the bloodstains, and watched.

Shards of bone began rearranging themselves, lining up to fix the break in the fibia—or was it the tibia? Jenny had never been good with the lower leg bones.

Threads of blood vessels began weaving back together now that all the blood had been recollected. The massive network of veins and arteries and capillaries collected and wrapped itself back around and in and through his body. It was all done slowly, carefully, so as not to cause further damage. Jenny understood this purpose. She stepped back to the curb and seated herself again.

At sunset that day, someone came.

Christina's sense alerted Jenny long before the person came into view. The girl raised a hand to her hair, biting her lip, worried. Who knew who this was?

When the person came into view, Jenny almost wished it had been Sylar. _Almost_ wished it.

The blonde girl shrieked and ran toward the man on the ground. Jenny stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

"Move!" The girl's screams were furious. "I have to help him, I have to! _Peter!_" She lashed out at Jenny.

Jenny grabbed the blonde's wrist. Through Jenny's eyes and Sinead's DNA, the three sisters saw what had happened.

The suicide attempts.

Homecoming.

The Haitian.

Ted Sprague.

The gun.

The explosion.

They saw it all, and they understood it all. It was like the ripple from the explosion: a message, sent through their DNA, written in a language none of them knew but all of them understood.

Claire struck out again. This time, Jenny's hand lifted, blocking the cheerleader's attack. In the same movement her other hand came up, bent knees rising as she thrust her palm into Claire's chin, forcing the cheerleader's head back. Her leg moved around behind, trapping Claire's foot, and with the muscle memory of three, they walked away from the blonde, lowering her to the ground as she tripped and fell.

"Listen to us," Jenny snapped. "Peter? Right now? He's only subconsciously alive. Everything's running on automatic. If that had been a full-blown explosion, instead of just _ridiculously_ strong radiation, it wouldn't be running at all. Now, _because_ he's running on automatic, he will mimic anybody—and we mean _anybody_—who comes near. Look. You see how slow this is going? Do. You. _See_ how slow this is going? He is healing more slowly than a mechanic fixes a TV. The human body is a _complex thing_, Claire, and this one is _totaled_. If you go near him—if he mimics your power—he will start to regenerate quickly. And if he does that, _cheerleader, he will die._ He _needs_ to regenerate slowly. Understood?"

Claire looked over at Peter, tears welling up in her eyes, and nodded.

"Claire!" A prim woman stepped out of a black car which had apparently arrived while the triplets were ranting. _"What_ is going on here?"

Jenny's eyes flicked over to the woman. Jenny's hands pulled away. Jenny's feet lifted the triplets from the ground. Christina pushed forward, exuding worry and overprotectiveness as Jenny moved to obscure the woman's view of Peter.

The woman obeyed Christina's command to her subconscious, grasping Claire's hand and pulling her to her feet without once looking Peter's way. "Claire, are you all right? My _God,_ child, you shouldn't be fighting, something could go wrong, you could get hurt, you could die—_again!_" Still worrying over her granddaughter, she ushered her into the black car and drove away.

Christina and her influence faded. Suddenly tired and already feeling the reminder of Claire's panic attack, Jenny walked around the bloodstains to the bench and sat back down. They wanted to sleep…

But they would wait longer.

---

Ted Sprague woke running a finger along his wrist.

More specifically, along a metal band that was wrapped around his wrist. When he saw that, he stared for a long moment before he looked at the room he was in.

It was a box. A concrete cell, with one window which looked out onto an observation room filled with scientists.

Ted was afraid. The last thing he remembered was reaching New York with Bennett and Parkman. How the hell had he gotten here? He was afraid.

So, he was angry.

So, he fired up.

He could feel the radiation flooding from his body. Alpha, beta, gamma. So much gamma… The cell wouldn't hold it all…

All this happened in the few seconds before shooting, screaming, splitting pain ran up his arm and the skin began to blacken and die.

The radiation died in a few seconds, and Ted fell back against the wall, gasping.

"He's awake," one of the scientists announced. Ted looked up from his dead arm as another scientist began speaking.

"Look, Mr. Sprague," she said coolly. "We don't particularly want to hurt you—" Ted was painfully aware of the modifier "—but all of us like our lives. We don't want to shorten them by being exposed to your radiation. Impressive, by the way. There was over five times as much gamma radiation as alpha and beta combined in that blast. Very efficient, as far as hurting and killing people goes." Ted's eyes narrowed and his good hand clenched into a fist. He didn't _like_ killing, and he certainly didn't like some Asian chick reminding him of it.

"Now," she continued, "you've been out of it for a while, and I'm sure it would be good for you to get around. Besides, you must be hungry. So, I'm going to come in there, and you're going to come with me, quietly and without flaring up. Know how I know you'll do that?" When Ted didn't answer, she continued, "_Because_ every time you start emitting higher levels of radiation than the average _light bulb_, that wristband will inject a serum that will kill every radioactive cell in your body. That's why your arm is all crispy, and why you're having trouble breathing. Don't worry, it'll heal. Not all the cells in your body can become radioactive, which we think is a sort of failsafe against just this eventuality. Now, if I see that happen, I'll leave you there and let you starve. Understand?" Ted still didn't answer. "I'll take that as a 'yes.' I'm coming in."

He wanted to flare up. He wanted to burn her. Ted didn't like killing, but for this girl he'd make an exception. Or he would have, if it wouldn't have killed him. Instead he stood, careful of his left hand, and followed her out of the room, through deserted hallways, around darkened corners, up to a set of high double doors. There was no lock or doorknob that Ted could see.

His escort laid a hand against a spot on the wall. It looked like every other spot on the wall until she touched it, but then a line of light ran down the point of contact. A panel opened beside it, revealing a number pad like those on a telephone. The woman began typing in a code that Ted didn't even bother trying to memorize.

The doors slid back noiselessly into the walls. Ted watched the woman questioningly until she nodded. Hesitantly, fighting back trepidation and the instinct to flare up, he walked into the room. His eyes widened.

"What the hell…?"

---

Jenny's eyes flew open. She lifted her head slowly, listening, uncurling from the tight ball they'd been sleeping in and sitting up quietly.

Someone was coming. A wave of hatred struck Christina's sense, warning them of who it was…

-TBC-

A/N: Well, that's it. See you next Monday!


	2. Chapter 2: And the Past Catches Up

A/N: And so, we reach the second episode of _Heroes Volume Two!_ I forgot to mention this last week, but as I don't have a clue about the time period Hiro is in, or what on earth they think they can do with that, I'm not going to continue that arc. This story is a sequel to Volume One, not the clip of Volume Two—that's why it has a different volume title!

Also, I didn't review this story—my friend, my imouto (little sister—I have really good friends whom I refer to as family) reviewed it, and we forgot that I was still logged in. Oops! (Don't believe me, ask her… she's Aquamarine Kitten.) Thanks also to katemary77 for reviewing. Come on, readers! Please review!

Oh, and, for the record, everything Hiro and Cassandra are saying _is_ actual Japanese. If you see a mistake, tell me—I've only ever taken Japanese 100, which is the main reason their speech is formal. And not all these OCs are girls—guys are coming, it's just going to take some more time!

P.S.—Sorry to all who are wondering about Ted. I ran out of time and needed to keep some more prepared scenes in reserve for next episode. Next episode, he will be there!

Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or the characters--but this organization and plot, and the triplets, Cassandra, and the new powers are mine!!!

---

Chapter Two: And the Past Catches Up

---

Hiro reappeared in darkness.

"_Kurai desu yo!"_ he muttered, looking around and squinting in an attempt to see. _It's dark!_

"_Kurai ja nai," _a smooth voice answered from all around him. A young teenage girl with bright blue eyes, fire-red hair, and an ornate _katana _sword stepped out of the darkness behind him. _"Me wakarimasen kara yami o mimasu." It's not dark… Your eyes don't understand, so you see darkness._

Hiro whirled, sword rising to a ready position. He blinked upon seeing the young girl. _"Donata desu ka?" _he asked. _Who are you?_

The girl walked past him, watching his sword. _"Mimasu," _she said by way of an answer. _"Yami ga kirai desu ne?" I watch… You don't like the dark, do you?_

"_Hai, suki ja nai," _Hiro said slowly. _Yes, I don't like it. "Doshite?" Why?_

"_Hikari kimasu." Light will come._

"_Itsu?" When?_

"_Hoshii desu ne?" Don't you want it?_

Hiro suddenly realized his sword was at his side and sheathed it. Something told him this girl wasn't going to hurt him, although he couldn't have said if that was intuition or insanity.

"_Hai," _he finally answered. _"Hoshii desu." Yes, I want it._

The 'Watcher' smiled and nodded. _"Hoshii desu kara kimasu." Because you want it, it will come._

Hiro frowned. How in the world did that make any kind of sense…? But there, slowly, he could see. There wasn't much _to _see, but the girl was clearly visible as she approached what looked like a balcony looking out over darkness.

The girl looked back at him. _"Kimasu ka?" Are you coming?_

Hiro took a step, then stopped. Two questions were nagging at him, the kind of questions that demanded answers before they would let him trust her.

"_Donata desu ka?" _he demanded again. _"_Namae wa nan desu ka? _Soshite doko desu ka?" __Who are you? _What is your name? _And where are we?_

"_Namae wa…" _The girl looked sad. _"Namae wa Kasandora deshita. __Doko desu ka…"_ She smiled. _"Dewa arimasen." My name… My name was Cassandra. Where are we… We're not._

"_Nani?" What? _Hiro's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

­---

Jenny stood and walked to the middle of the street, facing the newcomer. Christina turned her ability inwards, calming the triplets. They knelt, Jenny placing her hand on the ground. The pavement began to crackle as it froze.

The dark-haired figure came into view as Jenny straightened again, keeping her hand away from her body. They recognized the men from Claire's memory. Jenny's eyes narrowed for a moment.

_Sylar._

The killer smiled a predatory grin. He saw only Jenny—he couldn't know that through her, two other minds watched.

Jenny spoke.

"Three days," she said. "You heal quickly."

He shrugged. "I was awake after the first." He tilted his head, walking around her, appraising her, eyes glittering. "Are you afraid, little girl?"

"Are you?" That was Sinead, in a viper's hiss, as Christina's ability battered the killer's mind and heart with fear drawn from a hundred murder victims' stolen memories.

Sylar's steps faltered, but only for a moment. He began approaching her directly, smile condescending and cold. "I feed on fear, girl," he replied. "I don't feel it."

Jenny stepped back as he reached her, her eyes widening. Never before had they met someone so incomplete, so lacking, so _broken_, that they could throw off Christina's ability like a jacket that had gotten too hot.

Sylar smiled as the sound of Jenny's heart quickened. "There," he whispered. "Now you're afraid. Now you know—"

But what they knew he never said, because at that moment he appeared to realize who was behind Jenny. He stepped around her, towards Peter. "He should be dead," he said softly, insistently. "The radiation, the fall—"

Jenny put their hand on Sylar's chest, blocking his path. "He saved Claire," he said, just as softly.

Sylar was thrown back ten feet.

Jenny reacted a moment later. _"Ow!_ Geez!" She cradled her right hand, wincing, as the skin on her palm turned red and burned. "Okay, _that _hurt…" She looked up at Sylar again, muttering, "Note to self… _do not _waste time talking before releasing energy." As Sylar stood up, though, she smiled. "Worked, though…" She raised her voice. "Like it? Heat! I can absorb it from an object and release it as kinetic energy! Useful, huh?" Her eyes darted back and forth even as she spoke.

Sylar's eyes narrowed. "Yes, a very useful ability," he growled. "I think I'll take it." His hand flew up; Jenny was slammed into a wall, the breath knocked out of her.

Jenny laughed weakly as Sylar approached. "Heh… Sorry to say I actually forgot you could do that." She grew silent for a moment. Her head jerked to the side, expression incredulous, then understanding. Suddenly her whole body went limp.

When her eyes opened, they focused on Sylar's with a sudden intensity. "Why are you killing, Sylar?" she asked. Sylar didn't answer, instead raising a finger to cut her head. "Oh, yes," the girl answered herself, glancing down at her hand and tapping metallic pink fingernails together. "Because other people don't deserve that power… and you want it." She looked back up into Sylar's eyes. "That about sum it up?"

Sylar was hesitating—not by his will, but by the will of another who had awoken at the sound of a girl who talked like she understood. The girl recognized the hesitation in Sylar's eyes for what it was—a struggle for control—and plunger in further.

"You want so much to be 'special' that you ignore the value of human life. But how can that reason hold up if you were special already? If _Gabriel _was special, long before you were ever needed?"

---

"Wake up! Bro, wake up!"

Zach opened his eyes and looked over sleepily at his alarm clock. The dark-haired, pale-skinned face of his twin brother stared back at him.

"Tim?" Zach asked, squinting in a vain attempt to focus. "What's going on?"

"Chimera," the vampire-looking brother replied.

"Huh?"

"Chimera!" Tim snapped again. "Blood chimeras! Fraternal twins who gained each other's blood cells while in the womb!"

Zach was silent for a moment. Finally, he said again, "Huh?"

Tim sighed. "We're twins. Before we were born, we each got some of the other's blood cells. Because we're different, our bodies recognized those cells as foreign and slowed their reproduction to the point that you can't even tell they're there by looking, but they are. And in here, they take blood at least every day, sometimes twice a day."

Zach frowned. "Isn't that dangerous? Can you regenerate blood that fast?"

"They don't take much at a time. But they look over a hundred or so cells, trying to catch additional mutations and diseases early, and this time, when they looked at mine, not all of them were mine. At least one of them was yours."

Zach was wide awake by now. "What are you saying, Tim?"

Time looked like a spooked rabbit. "They're coming, Zach. They're coming for you."

Zach was on his feet in half a second. He grabbed a jacket off the bed and his bag out of the closet, speaking again. "What are the odds, though? I mean, those cells must be unfavored by like a million-to-one ratio—"

"Zach, I've been here since April. It's not like this is the first time they've drawn blood. I'm almost surprised it didn't happen sooner."

Zach halted, his hand outstretched toward the apple on his nightstand. "Tim…" he began.

"Zak," Time interrupted again, speaking quickly, "I told you not to come here. Now you've got to make sure you don't. You've got to get out. And you've got to get out now."

---

By the time they found Candice, she was a rotten shell.

The leader of the search party, a young man who could have passed for a Weasley by his hair and freckles, sighed and tapped a thin wire wrapped around his shirt collar. "Command," he said bitterly, "I got good news and bad news."

The Japanese woman looked away from the room Ted Sprague had just entered, removing her hand from the wall to close the doors. "Good news first," she instructed.

"Well, the good news is, we found Candice."

"Took you long enough," she commented pointedly.

"With all due respect, ma'am, it took us three days when we couldn't get a lock on her position. Which brings us to the bad news—"

"She's dead." It wasn't a question. The woman began heading deeper into the complex.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Tell me some good news, Rodney." The woman typed in an access code—_K9M9K15—_and entered a large room full of scientists typing at computers, all facing a large screen.

"Okay… Well, the good news is, even though her body's rotted, her head's still intact, so it doesn't look like Sylar got her."

"I don't care about looks, and I don't care about skulls," the Asian woman informed him. "Open up that girl's head and see what's inside. And how the hell can a body rot in three days? What ability can make that happen?"

"I don't know, ma'am, but as for opening up the skull… we don't have a doctor who can perform an autopsy."

"Well, if I was asking for an autopsy, that would be a problem. Fortunately, I'm not. Just open up the skull and tell me what you see."

Sigh. "Yes, ma'am."

The woman in charge accepted a folder of reports from a nearby white coat and began scanning it. "The president is missing," she commented in mock surprise. "Why is that?"

The white coat looked scared. "Well, ma'am, they haven't found him."

"I know that, _baka_," the woman snapped. "I mean, why is he 'presumed' dead? Either he is dead or he isn't. Run a test and find out."

"A… test? But, without a body…"

The woman looked over at him, supremely bored. "How long have you worked here?"

"I was brought in a few weeks ago."

The Asian snapped the folder into his chest. "Then someone's told you by now about our foolproof method of determining whether someone is living or dead. Run it." She turned to the large screen, which showed video of a crowded room. "_Urusai,_" she muttered. "When is Rodney going to be finished opening up that skull?"

"Ma'am," Rodney Jensen's voice came through the radio as if in answer, "we've opened the skull… and I gotta tell you, it's a piece of work."

"Just tell me what you see," the woman instructed.

"Well, the brain's still there, so it wasn't Sylar, but it's got tunnels running through it, like works have been eating it; and it's half-sunk in a puddle of green stuff—we don't know exactly what."

"Well, find out. What is it, the brain? Brains aren't green."

"Bodies don't rot away in three days."

The woman laughed. Within a second she was all business again. "Bring a sample of her DNA. Whether you bring or burn the body is up to you."

"A sample?" Rodney sounded confused.

The woman's smile didn't reach her eyes. "We don't want to lose that marvelous ability, do we?"

---

Sylar's eyes narrowed. The girl flinched as the slit started to form in her skull. "Chandra Suresh—" he began.

"Was an idiot," she bit out. The corner of Sylar's mouth twitched upward, and the cutting stopped again. "Suresh had encounters with three gifted children in India—_three_. Not _one _of their abilities could have been detected with the machine he tried to use to detect your power. _That_ machine could only detect abilities that showed up in the conscious levels of thought, and that could be used while the person was both alive and awake. It didn't detect your abilities because Gabriel's abilities don't fulfill those requirements. But they are there." She smiled in turn. "Or did you two think 'normal' people get up after the hospital declares their time of death?"

Sylar's eyes narrowed. He didn't like people playing games with him. Why he hadn't killed this girl and moved on to Peter was a mystery to him, but he let her continue speaking.

The triplet cocked her head to the side, watching Sylar. "Oh," she said softly, smiling. "Mother Dearest didn't tell Gabriel."

Sylar lifted a hand and slammed the girl's head back against the wall. "Speak English or shut up," he snapped

"You're angry," she commented. "Okay. In English: When he was ten, Gabriel played soccer. Not so when he was eleven. Remember why?" Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "There was an… _incident_… towards the end of the season that put Gabriel in the hospital."

The second personality was pressing forward, interested. _He _remembered, but from Sylar's expression, he either didn't know or didn't care. Maybe both. In the triplets' experience, people didn't like having their logic, their _raison d'être,_ torn down. Still, Sylar didn't start cutting, waiting for the teen to finish and the other to retreat to the back of their mind.

"If he remembers right," the girl said, turning a distant gaze upward, "it started when one boy insulted Gabriel's dad. Called him a 'common watchmaker' or something like that. Not that Gabriel had never called his dear old dad names like that, but he's family. This boy wasn't. so Gabriel used his first ability, the one that Chandra Suresh actually _saw_ and didn't recognize for what it was: the ability to see the way things work.

"You remember, don't you?" Her eyes, greener than they had been before, bore into him. "The sense that people who had these abilities and fought them were broken, or breaking; the knowledge of a new part you'd never seen before when you first saw them. Gabriel had that. He had that even then. And he used it on that boy. He sifted through all the pieces in the boy until he found a fragile piece, one that would break if he just touched it hard enough. And then he touched it, hard. Do you remember how he touched it?" She looked harder into Sylar's eyes. "Do you remember what he said that broke that twelve-year-old boy into pieces?"

She leaned forward against Sylar's weakening hold until she could whisper her next words right into his ear. "He said, _'At least my father's raising me into a family business that doesn't pay a minimum wage of five to ten.'"_

She dropped to the ground as the man staggered back. His eyes were wide, no longer calm and cold but instead panicky, full of denial and something close to regret.

The triplets stood up again, watching and feeling. The dominance of the emotions had shifted; the strength of this one's panic had thrown him into control.

The girls' mouth twitched into a smile. "Hello, Gabriel," the one who had been speaking said. "I'm Sinead." She pronounced it like an Irish, as "Shin-ADE."

Gabriel Gray felt his way along the bench he'd run into until he could stumble back into the street. He was impossibly different from the man who had just been about to kill them. Sinead was sure now.

The triplets, in Jenny's body, followed him, Christina carefully holding the balance of emotions in place. "You didn't let me finish the story," Sinead complained. "That is—that is rude. That is very rude. Can I finish?"

Gabriel shook his head. He was breathing as heavily as if he'd just run a marathon. Sinead smiled. "Didn't want me to say that, did you? Didn't want me to remind you of what you've been ignoring. Didn't want to remember that all those people died for nothing." She almost looked sorry to add, "That your mother died for nothing."

Gabriel fled.

---

Zach was ready.

The agents came into his house silently, aiming guns and lights into all the corners. They weren't worried about being seen—everyone would be asleep. Zach watched from the floor above, gripping the apple tightly in his right hand.

It was several nerve-wracking seconds before one of the dart guns pointed up towards Zach. The boy ducked out of the way of the dart that followed; the light tracked him.

"I see him! He's upstairs!" a voice told the others, and nine more flashlights were trained on the teenage boy, who immediately ducked back away from them.

Zak began speaking when he heard the first boot on the stairs. "When I was nine, I burned my hand," he told them. "Spilled boiling water all over it. Third-degree burns—took forever to heal. But I was compensated." He gripped the apple tighter. "With my right hand, I can make any solid object spontaneously combust.

He lifted the apple and lobbed it at the first head to appear.

The man drew a pistol and fired.

-TBC-

A/N: Man… long chapter, not much action… sorry! Anyway, see you next week! Please drop a review on your way out!


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